There’s something almost indescribably cool about black and white photos of jazz musicians from the Fifties and Sixties. Perhaps it’s the clothes; maybe the instruments or it could just be that black and white photos per se are cool.

These snaps from Italian photographer Roberto Polillo were taken between 1962 and 1974. His dad – Arrigo, a well-known Italian jazz critic, presumably helped him gain access to a lot of the subjects as he was only 16 when he started this series back in ’62. They’ve been previously published in a book called ‘Swing and Bop Free’, have travelled Italy in various exhibitions and also have a permanent home at the Fondazione Siena Jazz – the Siena Jazz University (how cool is that?).To our knowledge this is the first time they’ve been available on the Internet so kick back, spark up a large one and enjoy these uber-cool images of legends from what many consider the golden age of modern jazz.